#french studyblr

Feel inferior? Yeah, I do too sometimes. While it’s totally natural to feel inferior to others sometimes, it can really feel like fat crap. What should you do about these feelings? Should you give up? Hate the person you feel inferior to? In this post I share my personal experience with feeling inferior to other language speakers (not native speakers of my target language) and real practical advice about what to do and how to deal with these feelings.

My Experience

When it was time for my evaluation at my summer language intensive at PIB. Only a day after arriving (they did not mess around at this program), I found myself in front of the evaluators jet lagged, tired, hungry and incapable to forming words. Twiddling with my thumbs instead of producing sentences because I was unable to control my nervousness. There was a panel of roughly seven teachers staring at me blankly from across a round table with me at the end facing them directly. It felt like I was on trial or worse, my entire worth being judged like meat at an auction. I ended placing with the 2nd years, which is the lowest level they offered and I felt crushed at first, but I didn’t let it get to me. Then I met the others,…

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Hey guys so I REALLY want to find more language study, travel and general study Tumblrs and bloggers so please comment down below with a link to your Tumblr, blog, and/or other social media link so I can follow you and create a Masterlist of blogs for my readers here on Tumblr and on my blog!

Note: Hello, language learners! Just want to first apologize for a very late post! A lot has been going on since my move from China and it has been a doozy. Excuses aside, here is a fresh of the press post for your language learning needs.

Grammar Is a Nightmare

Grammar is always a nightmare for language learners. It doesn’t matter what language you’re learning, grammar is simply not always a basket of roses. It’s actually never a bucket of roses and the sooner you accept that,the better whole language learning process will go. Why is grammar such a nightmare for those of you who are bright eyed bushy tailed and new to language learning? Here’s a list:

1. Because there are ‘rules’ to grammar, but there are ALWAYS exceptions.
2. Sometimes the grammar itself makes no sense at all when explained in your native language
3. You often forget them right after
4. They may have specific usages that you must know of in order to avoid sounding like a plebe
5. There are a million and get more and more complex as you progress

What Is Grammar

Stop your scrolling! This is important!! I’m not going to explain the complex intricacies of the concept of grammar or even try to simplify it because if you speak a language, any language, you know what grammar is. HOWEVER, it is important to remember as you study grammar is that it is the written expression of how a group of people understand and synthesize the world around them. It is also how you learn more about the culture of the language you are learning. So take care to learn grammar thoroughly.

So how do you get through this total nightmare with your sanity intact? Fortunately for you, I’ve been studying languages for ten years and can tell you EXACTLY what to do. So before you resume or begin studying, here is my recommended step by step guide to studying grammar.

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Quick update: First of all, let me apologize for not updating in a while. I have moved from China to the USA and from Boston to Virginia and have now begun studying for the LSAT. Whew! I’m back to a regular routine and you guys should see regular posts from me now!

If you’re self-studying or self-learning Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, French or any language, there are so many reasons why a language learning method could fail that you could be completely unaware of. After all, there is no one identifying your shortcomings or problem areas in language study for you. You have to do it all by yourself. When I began to learn Japanese and Korean in high school I did not know this and it was pretty devastating. When things slowed down or I couldn’t remember Japanese words, I got so freakin’ pissed! Why wasn’t all my hard work paying off!? How long does this stupid crap take?! Why am I not fluent!? How do I learn Japanese faster?! I was rightfully frustrated, but at the wrong things. I was angry at everything else except how I was actually studying.

What I have come to understand is that the language learning method is just as important as the content you actually learn.

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Source:https://lilidoescriticallanguages.com/2018/08/30/feeling-stuck-how-to-get-passed-a-language-learning-rut/

“Everything is so hard! I just wanted to be an astronaut!” – A wise man (probably)

Learning a language isn’t supposed to be easy. It’s a living and breathing method of communication that isn’t always perfectly logical. In other words, it’s a HOT MESS and you’re going to have to learn your way through the dense and confusing jungles of someone else’s language. So naturally, you will reach roadblocks and will deal with things that will make you want to quit life and go back to bed. It’s natural! It’s life!

If you are a huge bump in your language learning journey, don’t panic. Don’t panic!! You being stuck is not a reflection upon you or your capabilities. Let me say that again. YOU BEING STUCK IS NOT A REFLECTION UPON YOU OR YOUR CAPABILITIES. It is a reflection of how the world works and how sucky it can be to learn languages.

While learning Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, I faced so many bumps in the road. So many. So many…. *clinches fist and closes eyes dramatically*. But I got through and so can you. In the steps I outline what you can do if you’re feeling stuck in your language learning or if you’ve reached a language learning plateau how to move forward. (So chill out on the “feeling in a rut” quotes from Pinterest cause they won’t help).

Remember Why You Started

This is super basic and you’ve probably heard it a million times, so I won’t linger on this tip. If you feel like giving up, just make a list of all the reasons you started learning this language in the first place. If you have no specific reasons, make some right now. Do some research and see what benefits your language(s) grant you! This will kick your butt into gear again, because now you remember the goal you’re chasing after and you’ll wanna reach it. Cause who doesn’t love reaching goals!?

Don’t Rely On Motivation

Motivation is so great for getting started on something, but once you’ve actually started to do something, you will find that your motivation often wains and all you’re left with is procrastination and guilt. You can’t rely on being motivated to do things everyday. You can try to motivate yourself each and everyday, but that is ineffecient because it takes up precious time and energy. Instead, build up your discipline or your ability to do things even if you don’t want to. Wouldn’t that be sick wicked awesome if you could consistently get things done even if you don’t want to!? That’s what discipline can do for you! The only way to grow it, is to practice doing it over and over till you build the muscle. Beautiful things take time and when you give it that time, you will see amazing results.

Pinpoint EXACTLY What the Problem Is

If you are feeling stuck, you need to try to pinpoint EXACTLY what the problem is. Are you having trouble reading, writing, formulating sentences, listening to natural speed? Pinpoint EXACTLY where the problem lies and then go deeper than THAT to see what is causing the problem. It is important to know exactly what is causing the problems in your studies, writing them down and then brainstorming the best way FOR YOU to address those problem areas. I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS.

For example, in my Korean studies I faced a HUGE issue. I could NOT formulate sentences to save my life or even my dog’s life! I could perfectly understand sentences, but I couldn’t make a single one. So I identified that I had trouble speaking. Then I identified that it was sentence formation. Then I needed to figure out why. So I threw myself into an immersive environment and realized it was because I was feeling overwhelmed by the grammar and was learning the material the wrong way.

Change Your Approach

Once you have identified the problem, you can begin brainstorming creative ways to deal with each and every problem

For example, in my Korean studies I could NOT formulate sentences! So I reviewed making basic sentences then adding complicated parts to them. I studied that grammar inside and out so that I knew EXACTLY what each word meant and how it contributed to the sentence to create it’s meaning.

I also realized that Koreans formulate sentences so bizarrely different from English so I needed to learn DIRECTLY from native speakers more often. In other words, I needed to shadow them. Then I was able to take sentences I learned to use them and modify them with my deep knowledge of the grammar.

Ask Someone For Help

Last but certainly not least, ask someone for help. It could be a teacher, a coach, another language learner (like myself) or a native speaker. Ask them to assess your abilities and help you determine what’s going wrong in your language studies. There is no book, blog or video that can supplement a human person’s personal interaction so look to others to help you where you are stuck and you will never be disappointed!

You can join language communities in:

Facebook,

Tumblr (you can ask me questions directly on my Tumblr page)

Instagram (Every week I hold a Q&A in Instagram Live)

Reddit (r/languagelearning)

iTalki

Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram|Facebook|Twitter|Pinterest

As humans we love to see exactly how our hard work has paid off. Basically, if you put work into something you will find that you tend to want to see exactly how much closer that hard work has brought you to your goals. That isn’t as simple in language learning but it is possible if you set the right goals and know how to track your progress in them.

How To Set Goals?

DON’T SCROLL PAST THIS PART. I know that it’s easy to roll your eyes and say, “Dude, I know how to set goals…” but hear this, you may be setting goals incorrectly. (DUN DUN DUN).

People often don’t know how to set goals in language learning and that is one of their BIGGEST set backs. Because people see lots of flim-flam around about “how to learn a language in three months” or “how to learn a language super duper uber fast”, they set HUGE goals like “be fluent in X months” or “speak fluently to people in X amount of weeks”. Why? Because they have been told that those goals are realistic! Those, my good friend, are not a good language learning goals and will set you up for disappointment and failure.

The correct way to set goals is to be VERY specific. However, there are two types of goals you should have: main goals and smaller goals.

Main Goals

Obviously, the overall goal is to be fluent, but that’s too big a goal to include on your list. Instead, first write down main goals. Main goals are goals that are used to track your overall progress in a language that are based on topics or situations. When making main goals, make only goals for that month, then add new ones for the next month or continue with last months if you didn’t finish. To explain the concept more clearly, I have posted a picture of my main goals for Chinese. However, it doesn’t matter if you’re learning French, Japanese, Korean, Polish or Spanish. You can use this template for learning any language.

As you can see, I have the month at the top, then on the left I have a tracker for how many days I have been studying. As you can see, there is a gap around the week of the 9^th because that was my birthday! Then on the left, you’ll see the key. There I assigned colors to the different components of my language study I needed to complete:

Vocabulary means I study at least 10 vocabulary words within the topic during that week.

Speaking means I practice what I learned with a native speaker (usually via iTalki)

Reading means I read something within the monthly topic within that week

Writing means I write a few sentences within the topic that week

Below all this you see the topic of each week. For one topic I chose Art, so that week I focused on learning about Art (using lists on Tumblr, random materials online and random Youtube videos I found). The next week I learned about politics (specifically how to talk about American politics) and then week three I will do fashion and week four I will do idols (as in celebrities in Korea and China).

Below all that, you can see exactly what I’ve learned. You can see how my language capabilities have grown and exactly what I can now express! Isn’t that cool!!! You should track exactly what you’ve learned to express and then at the end of the month, compare that to what you were able to express last month. But the difference is, you can see exactly what you can and cannot express and maybe identify holes in your knowledge. So one month, you can repeat a topic to fill holes in your knowledge or expand deeper on the topic.

Small Goals

Small goals are little things you’d really like to learn that are outside of your main goals. You can set small goals like finishing a certain book, learning a new song or understanding an entire movie. These goals you can also interweave into your main goals to make it easier to accomplish them.

Learn Topic by Topic

This is the best way I know how to track language learning progress is to learn topic by topic. The more topics you are able to talk about, the more fluent you will become, right? Well, tracking your progress in topics is MUCH easier than tracking every single thing you learn arbitrarily! Each week, pick a topic you’d like to study and find materials related to the topic to help you get as much done as possible.

Topics Are Endless and So is Language Learning

Be patient!! Keep in mind that there are SO many topics to learn because language is VAST and there are many things in the world you can talk about. So the more topics you are able to learn, the more fluent you will become. This absolutely doesn’t happen overnight and I don’t believe it will happen in three months either. But if you just keep going and are consistent, you will find yourself able to speak more and more and more. And that’s what language learning is all about, a continual language learning process where the goal is just to keep improving, because there is always room!